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Crush and strain honey comb !

11K views 17 replies 9 participants last post by  Zonker 
#1 · (Edited)
7/27/12

Just got finished crushing and straining 2 Warre hive boxs. I took some pics of my home made equipment. Plastic 5gal pails and a 5gal paint strainer bag, plus pail lids. An oak board to crush and a potato masher to mash. Bread knife to cut comb loose from top bars in boxs. A large bowl to crush comb in, lots of news paper, because its a messy business. :)
Lay out paper on work table, stack buckets and lids, wet paint strainer and sling excess water out. Put strainer in top bucket with no bottom and put lid on with opening to dump thru. Cut comb out of boxs and crush in bowl, when comb is throughly crushed, pour in to strainer. Repeat process until all comb is crushed and poured in to strainer bucket. Then clean all honey mess up and pour it in to strainer bucket too. Once all is cleaned up on table, take boxs and bars and utensils to bee yard for bees to clean for you. Let honey set for 2 or 3 days for all to strain out of wax. And for honey to settle out air and clear up. Then bottle it and see how many Friends you have. :)
Heres a link to some pics of my equipment and the process.

https://plus.google.com/photos/1115...ms/5769986750526822017?authkey=CID-tMH8idjbBw
 
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#3 ·
I noticed that if you highlight what he has above and then backspace back to photos you can then click on that and look at all his photos. Fact is if you put you pointer on some of the pictures it then lets you look at several in that group, I have never seen that before.
 
#6 ·
@Pelz _ With the warre yes, unless you can get them to build straight with the bars. I dont worry about it myself, I let them build as they please. And yes I like to look at their artwork too! If you look you can see the queen cells left from the swarm in the one box. That box was the bottom and only about 3/4ths full of honey.
 
#8 ·
@ Groves, I will post a pic of my bee escape tomorrow. Mine is a single triangle escape, it did not do so well. Even after 48 hours, so I took my leaf blower and blew out all but about 20 bees. I believe I will double up on the triangle escape. I made one for my Warre's, and one for 10 frame Langstroths, for a good Friend. My honey is stll draining through the strainer, about 3 gals now. I will bottle it up Thursday or Friday. :)
 
#12 ·
Hey Chain-Charlie

I was wondering what percentage of those boxes had 'sealed' honey and what percentage was open? I have a three stack warre and a five stack warre. I wanted to reduce them both to two stack for the winter but am getting a little nervous that they will not cap all the comb. When I inspect there seems to be a random placement of brood and capped honey! Definently more capped honey along the sides with more brood in the center on the top box but it seems they have capped honey in every box.

Think I should pull out the ol'comb knife and selectively harvest then focus the combs that have more brood/uncapped cells in fewer boxes or should I just go ahead and pull the top box (or two off the larger hive) and sacrifice the brood. On a side note, when I checked them out yesterday without smoke they were not pleased. I should have seen the way the bees were acting on the smaller hive (way more guard bees then normal hassling every bee that entered) and realized they were fending off raiders - They pretty much attacked the ever living sheesh out of my gloves and got my buddy on the legs who was helping me (well, he should not of had shorts on I guess -Hahahah).

So the reason I want to rob them now is so that they might have time to stock some more nectar away before winter - My thinking is that if they feel like they dont have enough stores early enough they may kick into high forage gear while if they think the are sitting pretty they may slack off some. Maybe this is not the reality....
 
#17 ·
So the reason I want to rob them now is so that they might have time to stock some more nectar away before winter - My thinking is that if they feel like they dont have enough stores early enough they may kick into high forage gear while if they think the are sitting pretty they may slack off some. Maybe this is not the reality....
I have bees in Elmira. Our flow starts there about May 1 and will run until about July 15. I remove honey at that time and let what they can find after that be their winter food. After July 15 they definitely become more defensive and will try to rob.
 
#14 ·
Kelbor, there was no brood in the boxs, only capped and uncapped honey. The honey that was uncapped was cured enough, none ran out when tipped. When you reduce Your hive's, check each box for capped honey. You should be able to see the capped cells. But it is a little early to get ready for winter yet. You shouldn't reduce till the begining of fall, mine was a queen failure. Which caused a deadout after they swarmed. There are some pics in first post of my box's full of comb. You can see the caps on the comb, and the bees should be in two bottom boxs. I usually wait till temps send bees to brood chamber to keep everybody warm. Then rob them early in the morning while its still cool. Tempature should be down about 45 degrees at night for this. Dont worry to much now and let them keep bringing in the harvest.
Blessings to Ya!
 
#15 ·
Hey thanks Charlie!
That sounds like very good advice. I noticed, yesterday, a ton of bees doing orientation flights so I know those queens are still pumping out the workers and keeping the populations high. Im still not 'tuned' to the local flows (apart from spring berries) here in the N.W. so Im not sure the extent of fall forage or how long it will last. I will be patient. Be patient. Be patient. Hahahaha.
 
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